Fan Fic and More

11/12/06
<b>Title</b>: Regret (part 1/2)
<b>Author</b>: Angel
<b>Rating</b>: TEEN
<b>Disclaimer</b>: The characters of Prison Break belong to others.
<b>Category</b>: Gen, het
<b>Characters</b>: Michael POV, Sara
<b>Summary</b>: Michael hears horrible news and takes a risk he shouldn’t.
<b>Spoilers</b>: End of season 1
<b>Author’s Note</b>: This is short, two part fic. And my first foray into Prison Break fic. It feels weird to not be writing about aliens…or even something less than 70 parts. Strange, that. We’ll see how this goes. *stares hopefully* Thanks to Pamela for checking this out telling me it’s not a piece of crap.

<b>Part 1</b>

The face on the television screen mocked me as my half empty glass of scotch hit the table sloppily, spilling most of its amber contents. Surely I heard the neatly pressed and coifed newscaster wrong. Signaling to the bartender to turn the volume up, I felt my knees start to shake. I could even feel the blood drain from my face as I heard it loud and clear the second time.

“Illinois Governor Tancredi, the front-runner for the newly open Vice Presidential seat, held a press conference to announce the accidental death of his daughter, Dr. Sara Tancredi today. The Governor continues to deny rumors that his daughter committed suicide by drug overdose.” I tuned out, then…scanning the bar for someone. Anyone. I didn’t know what to do with myself as I stared up at the 30 year old television with the off balance horizontal.

They had to be wrong, I thought. I couldn’t believe that Sara would kill herself. I absolutely refused to believe it.

I hurried out of the bar and shielded my eyes from the hot Nevada sun. There were very few cars outside and the ones that were there looked like they wouldn’t start. But my borrowed motorcycle was still there, gleaming red in the sun. Juan, our neighbor, graciously let me borrow it when I needed to run into town.

During the ride back, I couldn’t think of anything except the last time I saw Sara. The angry look on her face as I asked her to do the impossible. I really didn’t think she’d do it. Considering that every single step of my plan that involved relying on someone else got screwed up, I was giving it about a 50/50 chance that she would actually leave the door unlocked.

Those aren’t very good odds when you have a handful of cons at your back expecting you to come through for them. But she did. She left it open. And I’d spent that week after the escape thinking that meant one of two things. One, she believed in Lincoln’s innocence and the conspiracy surrounding him enough that she left it open. Or two, she still had feelings for me.

As I stumbled through the door of the trailer I’d been holed up in for the last few days, I vaguely heard Lincoln mumble something about a phone. I couldn’t hear him, though. I had one destination in mind…the laptop in the back room that was piggybacking on Juan’s satellite internet connection.

“Michael, what’s wrong?” Lincoln followed me. Knew something wasn’t right. “Tell me.”

My hands shook as I impatiently waited for the laptop to wake up and show me the local Chicago news. I looked up at Lincoln’s worried face and was surprised that I couldn’t see him clearly through the tears in my eyes. Tears of frustration or regret, I didn’t know. Both, probably.

“The news…it said that Sara’s dead,” I mumbled and tried to still my fingers from clicking anything on the laptop. The wait seemed to take forever as I stared at the tiny hourglass flipping.

And flipping.

Instantly alert, Lincoln asked, “Dead? Who killed her?” The conspiracy, of course. His first thought was that she was a victim. I thought he could be right. She wouldn’t kill herself. If she was dead, it wasn’t by her own hand.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” I declared as the news finally popped up in my browser.

Over the next hour, I found the same story over and over again. ‘Governor’s Daughter Dead by Own Hand’, ‘Respected Doctor Found Dead in Apartment’, ‘Governor’s Daughter Overdosed on Morphine’. Finally, I gave up.

It was true.

She was dead.

And it was my fault.

~TBC~

Very interesting first part! It's definitely not crap! :D I'm curious to know what really happened to Sara. Great start, Angel!

ooh..Angel...this is great...I agree, it's not crap, in fact, it's excellent. Um...one request...can Veronica die in the next part!

Poor Michael...all that guilt he's feeling. It's going to eat him up

OH wow...prison break! woo hoo. I love this show, and your story is great. Poor tortured Michael! He's taking this all on himself, isn't he He's just going to wallow in the guilt

Oops, I forgot to post the 2nd part to this.

<b>Part 2</b>

Your mind goes to interesting places when you’re alone in a car for three days. Especially when you feel like the guilt is eating your organs piece by piece, letting you feel every agonizing moment of it.

I had the windows rolled down on the old clunker I bought for $150 as it sputtered its way through the desert, then the mountains, then the endless fields of corn and soy. I knew I’d be lucky if it made it all the way to Chicago.

The blur of the landscape and the monotony of the white, dashed line blinking steadily on my left were my only friends. Occasionally, I could see Lincoln in my mind. Could see the fire in his eyes when I told him what I had to do.

“You can’t think you’ll get away with this!” he spat out at me as I packed a small bag.

“Maybe not,” I replied.

He must have paced the small trailer twenty times with the grace of a bull. As I packed, I felt our makeshift home lurch with his angry movements.

Before I left, he tried one last time. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone.”

Guilt.

It’s one inescapable feeling I will never be able to shake. He knows that. But it didn’t stop me from getting in my newly acquired 1979 Volkswagen Beetle with a rusted out floor.

But he <I>wouldn’t</I> be alone. He would always have Veronica. She was like a rabid dog with a bone trying to get his name cleared and uncover the conspiracy that sent Lincoln to Fox River in the first place.

She would be successful.

When I reached the outskirts of Chicago, it felt like I hadn’t been home for years. The last week stretched behind me like an endless trail of dust and anxiety. Somewhere out there they were looking for us. There was a manhunt in motion and it was just a matter of time. The plan was to clear Lincoln’s name before that time came.

Coming back here could only end one way, I knew. Most likely it was trap. I knew this. But I figured I had fifteen years I owed the Illinois Department of Corrections. And if that was how it had to end, then so be it.

I had to see for myself.

I had to offer myself up for repentance, even though the only person who could give it would be six feet under me.

I had a date with a gravestone.

My plan had come to the end. It was almost complete and I could trust Veronica to see it though. As I drove through the decorative stone archway leading into Calvary Cemetery off the banks of Lake Michigan, I knew Veronica was in Washington DC fighting for Lincoln and his freedom.

The gravestones stood at attention as if mimicking the soldiers they memorialized in the oldest part of the cemetery. I used to go there as a kid and play among the ancient epitaphs.

It wasn’t difficult to find my destination. The fresh graves were capped with rich, brown dirt bulging from the ground. As if the person underneath wasn’t quite ready to stay there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a groundskeeper eyeing me and I nodded my head in greeting as I got out of my car.

If it were a trap, I didn’t see anyone around except the weathered old man holding a well-used rake and staring at my rust-bucket. I hoped that my pathetic disguise of a baseball hat and sunglasses would help keep people from recognizing my face. Considering it was plastered all over the news every night, anyone with a television could have recognized me.

After the long drive, my legs wouldn’t quite work right as I made my way through the recent graves. Then I saw it. A large, gleaming white stone that said:

Sara Tancredi
April 15, 1977 – May 14, 2006
Beloved Daughter
Dedicated Doctor

And in that moment, I realized that it had all really happened. She was the ultimate consequence of The Plan. In my quest to save my brother, I destroyed a life. A life I cared about. And I could never make it right.

I didn’t even realize I’d walked the rest of the way to the fresh pile of dirt in front of the gravestone that so captured my attention, or even how much time had passed. But I could feel the damp earth soaking through the knees of my pants and I had to look away.

In the commotion that followed, I realized I had been choking on my own guttural sobs. I didn’t recognize the sound was actually coming from me until arms grabbed me and hauled me upright.

It was as if everything was going through my mind in slow motion in an effort to deny it was happening. Of course they were probably waiting for me to show up there. A part of me knew that when I left Lincoln in Nevada.

Red and blue lights spun all around me and I heard shouts and car doors slamming. I didn’t resist. As they led me away, I tried to twist around and get one last glimpse at her grave to make sure the origami flower I brought was still lying there.

Bellick was standing by the car they shoved me into with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Welcome home, Scofield,” he sneered.

I felt numb as the shackles bit into my flesh. But at least it was a familiar sensation, along with the aching guilt and regret that was squeezing my heart. All I could think about were what Sara’s last thoughts might have been. Why did she do it?

I thought about all the research I did on her for The Plan and there wasn’t anything about drugs. She was smart and beautiful and I used the knowledge I gathered about her to manipulate her and her feelings.

“You better get used to the tears, Scofield. I’ll make sure your next fifteen years are full of ‘em,” Bellick growled from the front seat, distracting me from my misery. I suppose he thought I was upset about being caught.

Curiously, I wasn’t. I knew I’d be going back, just not that soon. It didn’t really matter to me. I accomplished what I set out to. I saved my brother from being put to death. But Sara…she wasn’t supposed to <I>mean</I> anything other than a means to an end.

But she did. She meant more than she would ever know.

As we approached the stone entrance, I could already see cops and reporters waiting outside. It was quite a show catching the most wanted fugitive in Illinois. I saw guards from Fox River, old familiar faces that would never have a kind word for me again.

I saw Pope and his unforgiving eyes. But when I saw who was standing next to him, with his protective hand on her shoulder, my breath left me.

Sara.

Alive.

Leaning forward and staring with disbelief out the window, my heart felt like it had stopped along with time. She watched me intently as I slowly drifted past, her face seemingly carved of stone. Unforgiving.

They planned it from the beginning. From the fake newscasts all the way down to the phony grave. So it <I>was</I> all a trap, but more complex than what I was expecting. And at that moment, I didn’t care about any of it.

She was alive.

I twisted my body around as the car pulled away and I watched her become smaller and smaller, until she was a small speck in my view.

Bellick’s amused voice got my attention again. “It was all her idea, you know. She knew you’d come.”

In his effort to antagonize me, Bellick gave me the best news he could have. It would be enough to get me through what was waiting for me back at Fox River. I couldn’t help the small smile that escaped and I nodded my head and looked out at the passing scenery.

She knew.

The End

Great plot and twist! And I like the last line, too. She knew. Great work!


Gerry

ANGEL...you posted the end here...

thank you thank you thank you